In May 1997, Tony Blair posed outside parliament amid a crowd of new female MPs. There had had been a record intake of 101 Labour women; there was a sense that things were finally changing for women in politics.

Then there came the reminder that things hadn't changed much at all: the women in that now infamous photograph were instantly dubbed the "Blair babes", a tag that has plagued them ever since.

This week we got our first glimpse of the women who may one day, if David Cameron has his way, enjoy similar indignities at the hands of the press (the tabloids have been struggling with Cameron's new women so far, alliteration-wise, but will no doubt eventually triumph: David's dolls? darlings?).

Mr Cameron's 140-strong "A-list" of candidates for safe seats at the next election, as the party has been keen to point out, is more than half female. As yet, only a handful of names have been released, but those that have offer a glimpse of the unfusty, no-perms-allowed new image that Mr Cameron wants for his new-look party.

Margot James, 47, is probably the best-known of the new names. She's a vice chairman (sic) of the party, a rich businesswoman, glamorous, a huge fan of Margaret Thatcher, and, of course, a lesbian - the Tory party's first "openly lesbian" candidate.

Then there's Maria Hutchings, the former Labour activist who had a go at Tony Blair on the telly over the treatment of her autistic son. And Louise Bagshawe (chick lit novelist), Sayeeda Warsi (lawyer, mother, and also a Conservative vice-chairman - there are four in total), Fiona Bruce, a former Business Woman of the Year, Hannah Hall, currently on maternity leave from the police with her 10-week-old baby, Angie Bray, a London assembly member ...

It's hard not to feel a little cynical when you run through the names (Asian woman, tick, working class mum, tick, lesbian millionairess, tick ... ), but the Tories do have an entrenched problem with women - only 9% of its MPs are female, compared with 28% of Labour MPs - and the feminists in the party seem genuinely delighted by the list. "It's designed to level the playing field," says Anne Jenkin, Conservative party stalwart and the brains behind Women2Win, the lobby group that helped persuade Mr Cameron to create the A-list. "It will change the culture - but these things don't happen overnight."

Margot James (she claims not to mind the "chairman", because she's used to that sort of thing in business), says the party has to make it clear to women - particularly black and Asian women - that they're welcome now.

"We've got to make sure the party reflects society," she says.

What may reassure the blue-rinse brigade (who will be free, should they choose to brave Mr Cameron's ire, to ignore the A-list in favour of local candidates) is that many of the women named so far do have some sort of track record in Tory politics. It's just that they have never made it into parliament.

Andrea Leadsom is a typical A-lister. She's 42 and the mother of three children (aged 10, eight and two) from Moulsford in Oxfordshire. She is grammar-school educated, clever, articulate, and successful: she was a director of Barclays by the age of 32 and now runs a children's charity. She's also been a keen Conservative since she was 15.

In 2001, Ms Leadsom decided it was time to try for parliament. So she tried to get selected for a seat - 15 times. Five times, she got right through to the final round, but then, each time, was knocked out by a man.

She says she feels it was all a good learning experience, but does worry that arcane selection processes - particularly the big speech candidates are required to make in the final round - play more to male strengths than female. "Men can come across as urbane, hands in pocket, strolling round the stage, in a way women perhaps can't," she says.

Hannah Hall, a senior manager at the Met, has managed to get selected before, but for a seat with a Labour majority of 10,000. For her, it's not just about there being so many women on the list, but what sort of women they are. "There's much more diversity, and I'm really heartened by that," she said. "It always used to be lawyers, bankers and people with party backgrounds. Now there's space for other people, people like me, with public sector backgrounds."

In the 2005 general election Fiona Bruce, local councillor, solicitor and mother of two boys (aged 10 and 13), fought Warrington South, a safe Labour seat, and lost.

"I fought my home seat last time ... I gave it my best shot," she said. "Now I've got to look elsewhere." She says she's always found her local constituency association "open and forward thinking", but approves the mix of women on the new list: "I see us as representing the women of the day, the electorate of the day."

Maria Hutchings, the 44-year-old mother-of-four from Benfleet, Essex who publicly took Tony Blair to task, says that the fact she's so far only been associated with one issue (she wants to champion the rights of disabled children) shouldn't stop local associations picking her as their candidate.

"I'm a people person," she says. "I believe I'll be even better as an MP than as a national campaigner."

Whether the local associations do pick any of these women - applications for the first tranche of constituencies to come up must be in by next Friday - remains to be seen. The list is the party's first incursion into positive action, and that's inevitably going to horrify some activists.

Women2Win - the party's first stab at a sisterly networking group - insist a radical step was long overdue.

"If we had carried on the way we were," says Katie Perrior, its press adviser, "it would have taken 400 years to reach an equal balance."